Dallas may be more than 250 miles from the Gulf of Mexico, the closest body of salt water, but that's not stopping a foundation and city officials from announcing plans for an $80 million maritime museum.

In the 1990 thriller "The Hunt for Red October," Americans got to know the U.S.S. Dallas as one of the submarines on the big screen.

But now North Texans will have a chance to see it in person, at a 3.5-acre museum in the Cedars neighborhood near downtown.

"Plans are in the works for the U.S.S. Dallas—nuclear power submarine, our city's namesake vessel, to occupy the first berth," Rollie Stevens, president of the Dallas Maritime Museum Foundation said.

The soon-to-be decommissioned submarine is part of the proposed Dallas Maritime Museum.

Once built, the museum will feature a 30,000-square-foot facility, theater, and event plaza. Right next to the facilities there were be three spaces for the vessels.

Eventually the replica of the Dallas that is currently on display will be replaced by the real submarine, which will be brought to the site in pieces and, once reassembled, will be more than 300 feet in length.

"What we hope is to put the submarine in such a way where we can open up the side of the ship with plexiglass and show there are three decks in the ship and show people moving about the ship as they'retouring the ship," Stevens said.

For the city, besides the cultural benefits, there's the anticipated economic boost from tourists and locals that the Cedars neighborhood in the shadow of downtown will receive.

"We need to be the city where families have fun; all coming together,” Dallas Mayor Mike Rawlings said.“I'm excited about it."

Museum officials anticipate it will open within the next three to four years.

Lots of questions on this idea. When a nuclear submarine is disposed of, the reactor is defueled and the entire reactor compartment is removed as a unit and shipped to Hanford. Wa. for disposal. So, you will need a "filler" hull section of appropriate length for that gap. I also can't imagine how you reassemble the hull (after trucking the entire sub to Dallas) and do the entire museum for $80 million. The Nautilus work to make it a museum turned out to be way more expensive than the Navy thought, and that project was pushed through by Rickover for sentimental reasons. This isn't the first time a town has tried to obtain a decommissioned nuclear submarine for display, only to find out jut how expensive it really would be. At one point, Newport, Kentucky was going to get Narwhal, but that fell through due to expenses.

My questions exactly, Tom. One article said they were going to put some sort of clear panels in the side of the boat to allow people in the museum see the people touring the interior of the sub. That would certainly detract from the experience of being inside a submarine. Since plans at this stage call for dis-assembly in Houston I'm hoping I can check some of that out -- if it gets that far.

Let's take that a little further. Just how do you "truck" 6,500 + tons of submarine? I know how we do it in the shipyard at EB, but I also know that they can't do it in Texas and run it down a highway! It's NOT a space shuttle!!!!!!!!

B^)

"If you ignore the problem long enough, it will go away. Even flooding stops eventually!"

Bill, Absolutely right!! One would have to get it in a drydock in Texas, break it down to small "truckable" pieces (and they are not built with disassembly into truckable pieces in mind) and reassemble the sub. Oh yeah, and reweld the HY-80 sections back together.

It boggles the mind that one would even think this would be possible to do without spending ginormous dollars. It would be cheaper just to build a full size wooden model you could walk through....

Late Breaking Possibilities!

1.) Equip the Dallas with tank treads:

2.) It's a submarine! Modify it to submerge under land and surface in Dallas:

In the talking about how to get the sub to the Dallas area, I would think that they could put large sections onto a barge and transport them around to Texas. From that point on they could use any large river system to get the sub sections even closer to the city. I would think from that point they could make a speacial trailer that could be used to transport the sections to theier final location.

I think that it would be a neat thing to do, for I also served on the Dalls from 93-96'.

Duane, All good ideas, but how much do you think that will cost??? I'd hazard a guess of $25-50 million just to transport all of those sections. There would be both weight and size restrictions on the size of the sections.And then the cost of the museum itself, etc.